Blueprints
Promising Programs
Program Overview:
This universal, multidimensional intervention decreases
juveniles’ problem behaviors by working with
parents, teachers, and children. It incorporates both
social control and social learning theories and intervenes
early in children’s development to increase
prosocial bonds, strengthen attachment and commitment
to schools, and decrease delinquency.
Program Targets:
The Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP) can be used
for the general population and high-risk children
(those with low socioeconomic status and low school
achievement) attending grade school and middle school.
Program Content:
SSDP’s success lies in its combination of parent
and teacher training.
Teachers receive instruction that emphasizes proactive
classroom management, interactive teaching, and cooperative
learning. When implemented, these techniques minimize
classroom disturbances by establishing clear rules
and rewards for compliance; increase children’s
academic performance; and allow students to work in
small, heterogeneous groups to increase their social
skills and contact with prosocial peers. In addition,
first-grade teachers teach communication, decision-making,
negotiation, and conflict resolution skills; and sixth-grade
teachers present refusal skills training.
Parents receive optional training programs throughout
their children’s schooling.
- When children are in 1st and 2nd grade, 7 sessions
of family management training help parents monitor
children and provide appropriate and consistent
discipline.
- When children are in 2nd and 3rd grade, 4 sessions
encourage parents to improve communication between
themselves, teachers, and students; create positive
home learning environments; help their children
develop reading and math skills, and support their
children’s academic progress.
- When children are in 5th and 6th grade, 5 sessions
help parents create family positions on drugs and
encourage children’s resistance skills.
Program Outcomes:
Evaluations have demonstrated that the Project improves
school performance, family relationships, and student
drug/alcohol involvement at various grades.
At the end of grade 2, Project students, compared
to control students, showed:
- Lower levels of aggression and antisocial, externalizing
behaviors for white males, and
- Lower levels of self-destructive behaviors for
white females.
At the beginning of grade 5, Project students, compared
to control students, had:
- Less alcohol and delinquency initiation;
- Increases in family management practices, communication,
and attachment to family; and
- More attachment and commitment to school.
At the end of grade 6, high-risk youth, compared
to control youth, were:
- more attached and committed to school, and
- boys were less involved with antisocial peers.
At the end of grade 11, Project students, compared
to control students, showed:
- Reduced involvement in violent delinquency and
sexual activity, and
- Reductions in being drunk and in drinking and
driving.
